A property includes a detached garage with an interior area of 24 ft × 20 ft, finished with drywall, heat, and electrical service identical to the residence. It is connected to the house by a covered, enclosed breezeway. According to ANSI Z765-2021, how is this garage treated in the calculation of gross living area (GLA)?

Option A: Included in GLA, because it is finished and heated

Finish and heat are necessary conditions for finished area but never sufficient, and the garage exclusion overrides them. Adopting this reasoning would add 480 square feet to GLA that no comparable carries, inflating the subject's size and distorting every price-per-square-foot comparison. It is the most tempting choice because it applies the general rule while missing the specific carve-out.

Option B: Excluded from GLA, because it is detached

This reaches the right result through the wrong rule, which is why it fails. Detached finished space is indeed excluded from GLA and reported separately, so the answer sounds defensible, but the operative reason here is that the space is a garage. The distinction matters because a candidate who relies on detachment would wrongly include an attached garage that was finished and heated.

Option C: Included in GLA, because the enclosed breezeway creates continuity of enclosure

A breezeway does not launder a garage into living area. Continuity of enclosure affects how connected finished spaces are measured, not whether an excluded category becomes includable, and the space remains functionally and legally a garage. Accepting this reasoning would make GLA depend on the presence of a covered walkway, which no measuring standard contemplates.